Man used pepper spray on Fresno officers before they shot him, police video shows

Police released video Friday of an encounter in which they said two Fresno officers shot a man holding a knife and using pepper spray on multiple officers.

The video includes audio of a 911 caller who said a store clerk in a gas station on Fig Garden Drive had been stabbed in the neck, shoulder and back after midnight on Oct. 5, according to police.

“He’s bleeding from everywhere,” the caller says in the video.

The released video then shows three angles from the body-worn cameras of officers. Two of the officers ended up shooting the unhoused man, who was later identified as 44-year-old Samuel Douglas Davidson-Rollin.

Police have said the clerk asked Davidson-Rollin to leave the business before the violence broke out.

Following the stabbing, he fled the gas station near Fig Garden and Bullard Avenue and was later spotted by a police helicopter a short distance away inside a church parking lot, police said.

Davidson-Rollin can be seen in the video spraying something towards officers as he walks towards them despite commands from officers to get on the ground. Police said it was pepper spray.

The videos appear to show the officers fire about seven rounds as Davidson-Rollin falls to the ground, dropping the knife and pepper spray.

One officer in the video is heard saying Davidson-Rollin appeared to have a second knife in his right pocket.

Davidson-Rollin was transported to Community Regional Medical Center and was in critical but stable condition. Police said in the Friday update that he was expected to survive the gunshot wounds.

The clerk was also expected to survive the stabbing, police have said.

The shooting was under investigation by the Fresno County District Attorney’s Office and Fresno Internal Affairs, according to police.

The officers involved have not been identified publicly, and were placed on administrative leave, which is typical, police said.

One of the officers involved had about four years with Fresno police while the other has been on the force for about 11 months, police said on the day of the shooting.

The man was later determined to be wielding a 4-inch fixed-blade knife, and was also carrying three other knives, police said.

Fresno County court records show Davidson-Rollin was cited in 2018 for intentional obstructing a business after being asked to leave.

The officers were treated for pepper spray injuries but not transported to the hospital, according to police.

The shooting marked the fifth officer-involved shooting to that point this year, according to archives. Two of those have been fatal.

One shooting by police since then has also been fatal, marking the sixth shooting by police this year.

There were six shootings by Fresno police in early October last year, and three at the same time in 2021, police said.